Once more, I’m squeezing today’s blog entry in early so that I don’t have to try to do it after we see Romeo and Juliet tonight (it was 11:30 when we got back to our room after Twelfth Night last night, and I suspect Romeo and Juliet may run even longer).

We started this morning with Barry Kraft delivering a wonderful exploration of Romeo and Juliet, touching on the poetry, sonnets in particular, the significance of the year 1595 to Shakespeare, death, and more. I could have listened to him for far longer, but we had to move on.

Tyrone Wilson brought a guest with him for today’s Theatre Reflections: Armando McClain who played Orsino in Twelfth Night. Armando talked a bit about the play and his career, then spent another twenty minutes answering our questions about life at OSF, fighting, intimacy (well, how an intimacy director helps the actors), being an understudy in addition to having a lead role, and more. I’m always grateful for the actors who come to these sessions at 10:30am after having been in a performance the night before – and we were the second group he’d spoken to this morning. I guess actors don’t sleep during the season.

This afternoon, we saw Rent; I knew a very little about the story and I’d heard “Seasons of Love” a few times, but that was about it. I really enjoyed the performance, but I could have used subtitles because the orchestra overwhelmed the actors a lot of the time.

Last night’s Green Show featured Tempest playing Celtic folk-rock, one of my favorite kinds of music (don’t ask how many Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention albums I own). I bought one of their CD’s; I think my car has a CD player so we can hear it on the way home on Friday.

The main event for the evening was Twelfth Night, set in the 1920s with a blues theme. All of the music was excellent and peformed well; the Fool (Feste), played by Arielle Crosby did most of the singing and was fantastic. I was really amused when the cast broke into the Macarena at one point; apparently, there were some Beyoncé songs, too, but I didn’t recognize them! If you’re coming to Ashland this season, see this production – but be sure to rent a blanket before the play starts, because it got pretty cool during the second act!